“You went and fell in love with an ultralight? That’s like a spider falling in love with a butterfly. They’re both arachnids, but the entire universe knows they don’t belong together.”
I needed an out. I needed to be someone who wasn’t trapped in Las Vegas. I went to that club looking for nothing and everything, and there he was. Jaxon’s hands on my hips were just what I was looking for, and for just one night, it was easy to be someone I wasn’t.
Then our signals went haywire. We’ve been looking for the gatekeeper for a long, long time so we can go home, and a new possibility just came up. It was my job to bring them in.
Only it was him. Jaxon Gray. Turns out, he comes from one of the most dangerous crime families in Sin City. But I’m not the only one after him. There are others who want him just as bad, and they’ll kill me to get to him.
Now we’re on the run together. He should be scared. He’s seen me shift, and it’s not sparkly or pretty. But he doesn’t cower when he sees the other side of me—my shadows, my claws, my fangs. With a curious gleam in his eyes, he asks to know more.
This is dangerous. He’s about to manifest. And as soon as he does, his biggest impulse will be to kill me. But it’s too late for my heart, I can’t walk away. So, the million-dollar question is: will what’s happened between us be enough for him to overcome his instincts?
He grabs the front of my dress and backs me up in ten quick steps before I have a second to react. The others yell after him, but Ascelin stops when he plants my back against the glass wall of Nisha’s office.
“What the hell do you think you are doing?” he hisses in a low voice, right in my face. “Running off with him? Letting him put his hands on you? What is wrong with you, Serena?”
I shake my head, wondering how he could possibly know.
But then my hand rises to my lips.
He saw the burn.
And the perfect handprint burned through my dress, all the way down to the skin of my lower back.
“Why?” Ascelin barks, loud and aggressive, right in my face.
The others stand back, watching, but none of them intervene. They can see the evidence of what me and Jaxon did, right on my face, just as easily as Ascelin can. They saw it on Jaxon’s lips, as well.
“We don’t always get to choose who we fall for,” I answer quietly as I look away from them all.
“You went and fell for an ultralight?” Ascelin roars as he snaps me back against the glass once more. “That’s like a spider falling in love with a butterfly. They’re both arthropods, but the entire universe knows they don’t belong together.”
Keary Taylor is the USA TODAY bestselling author of over twenty novels. She grew up along the foothills of the Rocky Mountains where she started creating imaginary worlds and daring characters who always fell in love. She now splits her time between a tiny island in the Pacific Northwest and Utah, with her husband and their two children. She continues to have an overactive imagination that frequently keeps her up at night.
Starfighter Training Academy. It was just a game. The newest, hottest video game release of the year. Choose a role. Build the perfect hero who joins you on missions to save the Vega star system from the evil Queen Raya and her merciless Dark Fleet.
Play for hours? Check. Obsess over the in-game romance between your avatar and the sexiest alien you’ve ever seen? Check. Win? Beat the heck out of the game? Check and check.
Open your door at 3:00 in the morning to find that smoking hot alien you thought you made up in your head standing there? Um… okay.
Wake up on the other side of the galaxy with that same alien insisting you’re his… and that you haven’t been playing a video game, but completed the training program to become the first Starfighter from Earth?
I rolled over and blinked at my alarm clock. Three freaking thirty in the morning?
I must have been dreaming.
The pounding repeated, louder.
No one came to my door this late. Ever. Hell, no one came to my door at all unless I had a delivery or one of my neighbors needed something. I threw off my covers and slipped my toes into cold slippers.
“Coming!” Was my apartment building on fire? Was it the police? Had the neighbors been screaming at each other again? She really needed to kick that deadbeat boyfriend of hers to the curb.
The pounding intensified, and it was obvious that whoever was on the other side of the door had no problem waking up the entire building.
“I said, I’m coming!” I opened the door and stopped dead in my tracks. A huge man stood in the hallway wearing a helmet of some kind, as if he’d been riding a motorcycle. Which was crazy because it was cold and wet and not motorcycle weather.
He removed the helmet, and I stepped back. My eyes widened in recognition. Black hair, those familiar sparkling green eyes. Perfect olive skin. Full lips. Square jaw. A familiar uniform with a crest on his chest, the one I’d just seen on my gaming screen.
“Jamie.”
I stared, my throat and mouth frozen. Holy shit. That voice. I knewthat voice.
He was as big as I’d imagined. No, bigger. Broader. More intense. That gaze, it bored into me, past my flannel pj’s and to a place that left me speechless. My heart pounded, and I feared I was losing my mind. Hallucinating. This had to be a dream.
“Jamie Miller, you must come with me.”
“Um… what?” I finally said.
“You are the first Starfighter. And you are mine. Queen Raya has mobilized the Dark Fleet, and together we must save Velerion.”
Grace Goodwin is a USA Today and international bestselling author of Sci-Fi and Paranormal romance with nearly one million books sold. Grace’s titles are available worldwide in multiple languages in ebook, print and audio formats. Two best friends, one left-brained, the other right-brained, make up the award-winning writing duo that is Grace Goodwin. They are both mothers, escape room enthusiasts, avid readers and intrepid defenders of their preferred beverages. (There may or may not be an ongoing tea vs. coffee war occurring during their daily communications.) Grace loves to hear from readers.
Rydaria lives as a prisoner in a tower library. Captured as a child, her past is a mystery. Maintaining the literary treasures within her care, she studies the world through books that give her a glimpse of the freedom she craves.
A scribe by trade, Crispin has devoted the last three years of his life seeking the lost heir of Avalene. He travels to Worthenave’s famed library in hopes of finding the key. Instead, he discovers a new mystery, a beautiful librarian who is locked in with her books every night.
As the days pass, Crispin must choose. Rydaria’s precarious situation is deteriorating. Meanwhile, his duty demands he leave before the Duke of Worthenave uncovers his quest. Still, the scribe can’t bring himself to abandon the captive in the library tower, even if it costs him his mission.
Inspired by Rapunzel and East of the Sun West of the Moon
Distantly the noon bells sounded as I lifted the first of the scrolls into place. Hoping that the stranger would leave for his meal, I continued to replace the scrolls until at least a score of minutes had passed. The last one slid home with satisfying ease. Dusting myself off a bit, I descended to the first floor to check if my meal had arrived.
It had.
Only one meal, the standard shavings of meat, a small loaf of bread, a pot of salted butter, and a bit of yellow cheese, lay on a tray at one end of the table. The jug of ale and a wooden cup sat next to the food.
The stranger still lingered. His satchel lay half-empty next to a mess of supplies and logbooks, scratch paper, and empty ink bottles covering the other half of the table. Pens in varying states of decay or disrepair were scattered about as though someone had sought a functional implement in haste and found them all lacking. Then, all of it had been shoved toward the end of the table to make room for the tray and such. The delivery boy had shown his customary lack of concern for anything beyond his task.
“Just push anything that is in the way aside.” The stranger himself stood next to the shelves where I had directed him, bent over the oldest log on the shelves.
“There is plenty of room, thank you,” I replied as I set about breaking the loaf into pieces. “Did you take your meal in the great hall?”
“I am well enough for now, thank you.” He didn’t look up from his perusal of the ledger.
From all I had read, large men seemed to require vast quantities of food. I glanced at the invader. He definitely fit the definition of large, but he didn’t have the manner of a warrior. I had seen many of those from my window perch and at my tower’s gate over the years. Though, I would definitely not consider him flabby or soft either.
As I considered the best descriptors for him, he lifted his gaze from the ledger and met my gaze. One golden-brown eyebrow rose in a silent question.
“You do not have the appearance of a man who skips meals regularly.”
“True, I don’t usually, but this is an exception.” He gestured to the laden shelves around us. “I have no way of knowing I will be allowed in again tomorrow.”
I shrugged. “I suspect you will. Worthenave likes showing off his collection, and admirers cannot fully appreciate it in only a single survey.”
“I prefer not to risk it.” His attention returned to the page.
Breaking my bread into two hunks, I opened up one of the linen napkins on the tray. Spreading it out, I set the bread hunk, half the cheese, and the meat shavings on it. I then folded the linen so that the food wouldn’t fall out.
Delivering the bundle took a bit more bravery, but I forced myself to act before I thought on it over much.
“To hold you until the evening meal,” I explained as I dropped it on the open shelf near his elbow. I returned to the table to focus on my own meal.
For a few moments, I feared he would reject it, or worse, take offense that I had not believed him. Only the sounds of him eating put me at ease enough to devour my own meal efficiently. As I cleared away the remnants, he approached and dropped the crumpled napkin on top of the pile.
Rachel Rossano specializes in clean romantic fiction set in historical-feeling fantasy worlds. She also dabbles in straightforward historical romance and not-so-strict speculative fiction. A happily married mother of three children, she divides her time between mothering, teaching, and writing. She endeavors to enchant, thrill, entertain, and amuse through her work. A constant student, she seeks to improve her skills and loves to hear from readers.
